Sunday, February 20, 2011

We are not going to let our dead fall on enemy hands. Mission is to recover the bodies of the two fellow contractors and bug out ASAP.

A quick peek down the street reveals an insurgent group, some 200 meters away from the intersection. It is clear that walking on the street to pick up the bodies would likely bring us under heavy fire. We are not here to fight, but we are surely going to pick one. I decide to set up my group in a position from which we can safely over watch the street.

You please take what I am going to do with a big grain of salt, because there are many inviting positions where to set up our key weapon. Your mileage may vary.

Positions where I could have positioned the group's automatic weapon. Great fields of fire, but likely to be targeted simultaneously by a lot of insurgents. I will not use any of those.

See the small arch in the wall near the bottom of the picture above? Keyhole!

I set up the flank protection heavily anchored on our right, a few meters from our SUV.

Right flank. Two of my men (right in the picture) watch towards the enemy controlled neighborhood. Another of my men (left in the picture) overlooks our left flank.

A more detailed view of the contractor protecting our left flank. The open field in the background will force any enemy flanking units into a nasty kill box.

I position another man in the left flank. His position is almost in our rear. He is the guy in our extreme left, and a few meters into our rear but I am going to be near him as I need to closely supervise the key weapon position nearby (see next picture).

Our key weapon (contractor #4) in a keyhole position. Beyond the arch in the wall, the street is getting hotter.

The insurgents spot us and start coming down the street towards us.

Another view of our key weapon (contractor #4). He is kicking some serious butt (note the radio messages in green).

Here I am closely cooperating with my key weapon. Keyhole positions may produce some interesting fields of fire issues. In this picture, two insurgents can't be engaged by the key weapon (see insert in upper left corner), that's why I was there to provide support. The two insurgents were quickly neutralized by my fire.

The firefight lasts for a good 4 minutes. The enemy tries to flank us at our left, but they get caught by the two contractors watching that flank. Our right flank doesn't get engaged.

Running from place to place within our defensive position (supervising and making sure everything is all right), I found this other excellent keyhole position in the house just in front of the mauled SUV. The street where the insurgents are coming from can be seen in the background. I would have loved to put my key weapon here, but it is difficult to herd AI-controlled team mates into houses.

When the firefight winds down, I bring a team member to over watch me while I retrieve the bodies.

Two casualties recovered. Time to bug out.

We mount up and get out of the place by going cross country, as far as we can from the built up area.